author
Andrew Oliver
1706–1774
A wealthy Boston merchant turned royal official, he became one of the most controversial figures in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts after being chosen to enforce the Stamp Act. His career traces the growing split between colonial protest and British authority in the years just before the American Revolution.
1 Audiobook
Copy of Letters Sent to Great-Britain by His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, the Hon. Andrew Oliver, and Several Other Persons
by Thomas Hutchinson, Andrew Oliver
About the author
Born in Boston on March 28, 1706, into a prominent merchant family, he graduated from Harvard and went into business before moving deeper into public life. Over time he served in major provincial posts, including secretary of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and, later, lieutenant governor.
He is best remembered for the crisis of 1765, when he was appointed stamp distributor under the Stamp Act. The backlash was immediate and fierce: crowds attacked his property, hanged him in effigy, and forced him to resign the post. That episode made him a lasting symbol of unpopular imperial policy in Massachusetts.
Even after that, he remained closely tied to the royal government and to Governor Thomas Hutchinson during a period of rising unrest. He died in Boston on March 3, 1774, only a little more than a year before open war began, leaving behind a life that captures how personal loyalty, public office, and colonial resistance collided in the final years before independence.